The Zal-Luna War
by Varoona
Summary: this is a very rough first draft of a book series that i'm working on and would love some feed back on what people think about the pacing, story over all, as well as the characters. Both positive and negative comments are greatly appreciated thank you. The summary is a story of discovery and a telling of a brutal war that split nations apart.


Zal'luna

By Aryanna O. Wolfe

_**Chaper 1: Lightning, The Butterfly, and the Fighter**_

"Ama? When do I get my name?" The little Zalnduu asked as she looked up at her mother with her deep brown eyes.

"What? Well I haven't decided your name yet little one. I don't know what I should name my sweet little girl." The girl's mother answered.

The girl's mother, Sanuye stood up and sighed softly. Her 15 feet of hair dragged softly across the ground behind her. Sanuye, the most beautiful of the Zalnduu to date. She had snow white fur and silver hair. Her tail was long as were the large fangs that poked out past her chin. Slowly she stretched herself up in the large cavern that was their home and yawned.

"Come help me get my markings on little one" she said to her nameless daughter. Slowly the 11 foot woman made her way over to a stone bench and sat down with a thud.

The little girl scrambled over to her mother. Her hair was only a foot long but on her little frame it still reached her mid-back. Unlike her mother the little girl had taken after her father. Her fur was a dark brown almost black. Along her belly flecks of a cream color showed though. This color persisted about her ankles, the digigrade feet, her forearms, and her hands.

The little nameless one grabbed some bowls that had been tied together to make a sphere and hurried back over to her mother. Carefully she set them down on the bench with her little clawed hands and fumbled with the Sinew tie that bound them together. Once she undid the not she paused and looked up at her mother for a moment. Her big brown eyes welled up with tears and she clutched her mothers leg tightly.

"Shh. Shh. What's wrong little dove? It's alright I'm here sweety I'm here" Sanuye soothed as she stroked the little girls back.

Her daughter barely reached her knee and sanuye's large hand easily wrapped around the girl. Sanuye knelt down next to the little girl and took her tail inbetween her teeth. The nameless girls tail easily sild into the harmless gap behint the fangs and just before the bone crunching teeth behind them. The snowy woman lifted her daughter up into the air and bounced her a bit with her tail causing the little Zalnduu to quickly relax and stop her crying.

Only once she had stopped did her mother let the girl back down into her lap. She smiled brightly with her hazel eyes and stroked her daughters head softly. Each long stoke flattened the little girls ears though they popped right back up after her mothers hand passed over them.

"There. That's better isn't it? No more tears, and no more saddnes. Now tell me little one. Whats wrong hmm? You know Bazterren wants to know. All that salty water you shed for her. If you don't tell she mite gobble you up." Sanuye tickled her daughter under the ribs causing her to break out into a fit of giggles.

"Well… I was just thinking." The girl trailed off

"About what?" her mother questioned.

"Ama? Why does Tzatch have a name but not me?"

"Ah I knew this would come. Your sister is very special little one."

"Hmph. She's not so special she can't even see. I can see. That makes me better." The little girl said defiantly.

"Now, now. Your sister was born on a very special night. The rain was terrible that night. The shakers were out in full force hunting the whales that live in the clouds. The booms of their great mouth and the cracks of the shakers tails shook the hills. But they were not the only ones up there you know?"

Wide eyed the girl looked up at her mother "Who else was there Ama?"

"Who else do you think? Ekaitz Spirit of the storms silly. She's always there when it rains. Now hush and let me finish."

The little girl blinked and shut her mouth tightly as she listened intently to her mother's tale.

"Now then… Ah yes. Ekaitz decided to give your Zava and I a very special present that night. I was heavy with your sister and it was time for her to come out. But just as she was born lighting stuck the ground outside our den. Ekaitz's flash was so bright that your sister, looking out upon the world, was blinded forever by it. And we knew her name Tzatch. The sound of lightning and the names of all the shamans of this world. They are always blind like your sister. And one day she will grow up to be a great leader. And pass on her knowledge to the next generation." Sanuye said softly and smiled.

"C-can I be a shaman too? I do really good Ama I promise." The little girl said hopefully.

Her mother only shook her head softly. "No dear. Only those born like your sister are shamans. Now help me get on my dyes. Then you can go out and play."

The little girl pouted but obeyed her mother. She reached for the bowl of red dye and painted large bands around her mother's legs. She followed the bands with some white dye even if it was almost invisible on her mother's fur. Next she reached up and put her little fingers on the side of her mother's broad muzzle to make two little marks and a final one down the middle of her muzzle. The last mark she put on her mother was a twelve pointed cross on her forehead.

Now that she was finished she grinned and hopped down from her mothers lap and charged over to her father, sleeping in the corner. She jumped up and grabed onto his ear with her sharp little teeth and growled as best she could as she tugged on it. Her father rolled over on to his daughter and chuckled.

"Didn't you mother tell you to go play?" His deep voice rumbled out.

The little girl blinked and struggled under her fathers heavy arm until she got herself free and ran towards the door. Her little feet pitter pattering across the ground.

"Wait!" her mother called and the little girl stopped in her track and looked back.

"But… but I wanna go play with the fowers." She said and stamped her foot. She hadn't wuite mastered the word flower yet.

"You can but tell me what my markings mean then you can go ok?"

The girl sighed dramatically. 'Band on the legs means Ama is fast and the mark on the nose mean Ama is Huntress. Den the star…. Uh…"

"The star is? Come on you know."

the little girl thought hard. "the star is uh… Elurra? It's Elurra."

"Good girl but what does it mean?"

"It means… it means… um…. That you sacrificed to her and… um… and have the mind sway?" the girl asked looking up hopefully.

"Good girl go play" Sanuye said and watched her daughter run out of the cave.

Her husband yawned a little bit and sat up. He was much larger then his wife and stood almost 14 feet tall. His musles were large, taught, and he was built like a mountain. As he twisted his back popped a little bit. He had seventeen and a half feet of hair and it dragged along behind him as he moved over to the bench.

"Mind sway huh? Is that why I love you more every time I see you?" he asked with a playfull growl and nipped at his wife's neck.

"Oh no I didn't even need it. I ensnared the great warrior with the bones of the mountain with nothing more than my swaying hips and long tail." Sanuye laughed and pulld his head close to her breast.

"Mmm good." He said and nuzzled up to kiss her ear. His huge head moved lower to kiss her lips but she turned away.

"Athchak?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think that she'll be alright? I worry about her sometimes. I'm afraid that I'm not doing the right thing as a mother."

"Oh come now you're a wonderful mother."

"You're sweet but I don't want her to fall down the path of apathy like Udan boy. You know the one she plays with?"

"Udan? Oh you mean Ziztada. He got named not to long ago. No she'll be alright. With you as her mother and a shaman as her sister I think she'll be just fine." Athchak said softly

"Ziztada? Well I suppose that is an appropriate name. He always was a little fighter. And a trouble maker." Sanuye sighed and looked back to her husband.

"Now why do you still have your clothing on?" he said with a wicked grin and pounced on his wife. Sanuye giggled a little bit as the two of them fell into their earthen and fur bed together. Each of them slipped a couple of golden rings with black chains around their tails. Amidst a fit of giggling and struggling they covered themselves with the heavy skin of the Twinhorn rhino, and let the rest of the world fade away.

The little girl, yet to be named by her mother, charged into the field full of flowers and dragged her big sister behind her. "Tzatch look, look. It's an… It's an Azabell. Oh… um Smell it then. Sorry." she said and held up a large flower. It was almost as big as her head and had long purple petals that drooped slightly from its steam. The head of the flower was almost too heavy for its narrow, green stem.

Her sister bent down and took a long sniff from the flower. She smiled a little bit "It's pretty." Tzatch said softly. She was much like her mother. Her fur, though not pure white, was a much darker shade of gray. Almost black. Along her stomach there was a dark brown band of fur that ran up her neck and over her nose. Her hair was about three feet long and even though she was four years, her two year old sister's, senior. She still enjoyed coming out into the fields to play with her.

Tzatch's milky white eyes looked past her younger sister as she spoke again. "Obomsawin." She said refereeing to her sister by her last name. "when I look out across the fields I see so much. I see Lurra and his strength rippling as far as I can sense with my feet. Zeura whirls around us and shines her light down from above. Amesta nestles gently in my lungs. Ibaiaren she trickles softly from the spring, and…" she spread her arms out wide and fell down into the flowers with a thud. "Harria, Where we were born, on the side of his great peak thrusting up from Lurra in defiance." She smiled and turned her head to her sister.

The little one stepped closer 'Wh…What do you see when you look at me?"

Tzatch sat up and turned to face her sister fully She had a serious air about her. She stared hard at her little sister for a long while. The little one nervously shuffled her feet as she felt the blind, but somehow piercing gaze of her sister. At long last her sister clapped her hands together.

"Ah…yes very interesting. Very interesting indeed" Tzatch said and nodded sagely.

"What? What is it? I wanna know. What did you see?" her sister whined and tugged at Tzatch's teeth softly "Tell me."

Tzatch looked at her again and crossed her arms. "Now this is very important so listen well."

The little one eeped and knelt down in front of her sister hanging on her every word.

"I Tzatch shaman of our people see…"

"yeah... What? What do you see?" The little one leaned in closer.

"Nothing. You are nothing and aren't interesting at all. I guess the spirits just don't like you." Tzatch said with a cruel grin.

The little one pushed her over and ran off into the field. "You're mean! I hate you!" She said to her sisters fit of giggles.

As the little girl continued to run she came across a small clearing in the flowers and sat down with a growl. "Stupid sister" she grumbled and picked at the grass. As she sat there a large butterfly touched down on one of the larger sunflowers and flapped it's wings gently. This caught the little ones attention. She dropped to the ground and crawled closer to the big butterfly jut like she'd seen her mother do to megabison. Slowly she inched closer and closer. Until, finally she pounced.

The butterfly lazily flapped it's wings above the confuse little girls head. As the little one looked up the butterfly touched down right on the edge of her nose. It flapped it's big wings, and sent out it's long proboscis to poke the little child right in between the eyes. The little one went cross-eyed and stared in to the face of hell.

It's eyes were segmented and it's long tube like mouth swished back and forth. The chitin on its head looked hard and shiny but had this fuzz about it. The closer and closer she looked the more that fuzz became little spikes. Spikes of death. This wasn't a butterfly it was evil. It was going to eat her soul. That long tongue of its reached out again and the little one could feel it though her fur as it probed her skin. It wanted her brains.

She Screamed and ran back towards the cave. The butterfly clining to her face the entire time. As she ran she began to cry but the salty tears only proved to be interesting to the demon that had attached itself to her. She ran inside her cave and sniffled.

"Ama! It wants to eat me! It wants my brains! Make it go away!" The little girl said as she ran to her mother.

Sanuye looked down and laughed. She laughed and laughed. Before brushing the butterfly away with a flick of her hand. The little girl was still clutching her tail and sniffling quite a bit though she looked confused. That was not the reaction she was expecting.

"Aww. My poor, little one. My little Volvoretta. Ah! That's it. I know your name darling. Because they like you so much I will call you Volvoretta after the butterflies that land on your nose." She said giggling.

The newly named Volvoretta's face went from sad to confused then to happy in a matter of seconds. She bounced up and down her tears now forgotten. She finally had a name. And it was longer then her sister too.

"Really? Can we do it now? Please? Pleeeeaaase?' she said and tugged on her mother's tail a bit. "I wanna do it now."

Sanuye shooed her daughter away "No, no dear it has to wait. One week. That's how long it will take me to make it alright. And then you'll have your name forever. No go tell your friend Ziztada. He just got his name too I bet you can talk about it for hours."

Volvoretta ran back out of the cave excitedly as Athchak pulled his wife back under the leather sheets.

"I think that's an excellent name dear. Volvoretta. Our fragile, little butterfly." He said and kissed her deeply on the lips. Ther chests glowed slightly as their Heartstones lit up in their passion. Their tail entwined and before long the entire lake could hear the twin roars of their pleasure.

The sun glinted off the lake in the midday sun. Its waters were a deep blue deeper than the sky above. Ezpritu Ur, as it was named was fed by the holy river named after the spirit of the River Ibaiaren. Though the term Ur for lake was a bit misplaced. This was more of an inland sea. At it's longest point the lake was nearly one hundred miles wide. And four hundred feet deep at the center. Yet this body of fresh water was where the strange Zalnduu people had lived for loner then any could remember. Lining the sides of the massive inland sea were a multitude of caves each with a flap of animal skin tied tightly across the front for privacy. Volvoretta ran along the edge of the lake until she found her friend, the newly named Ziztada.

The little boy only a few months older then Volvoretta was swinging a stick around by the edge of the lake. He was pretending to fend off multiple attackers. One from the right. He dodged in a roll and came up to stab at the center one. But too late. The left one got him in the side. He growled in pleasure and stumbled.

His mighty sword still in hand he whirled and beheaded on of the invisible foes but just as he did, the final attacker buried it's invisible sword in his heart. He cried out and held the stick with his armpit as he fell back into the soft earth with a little thud. Retta looked down at her prone friend and tilted her head.

"What are you doing?" she asked and chewed on her finger a little bit.

"Shh… I'm dead…" Ziztada said opening one eye.

Volvoretta rocked back and forth on her heels for a little bit but this was boring. So she pounced him and the two tumbled over and over again until with a thud Volvoretta pinned him to the ground.

"I win!" She said triumphantly. Only then did she notice the bandage on his nose. Leaning down she poked at it. "What's this?"

Ziztada squirmed "Ow, ow, ow! Stop it hurts get off!" he said and pushed her over.

"But what is it?" Volvoretta asked laying on her side in the mud.

Ziztada adjusted the little sinew that bound the bandage to his muzzle before looking to his friend. He puffed out his chest. "I have a name now. Ama made me a mask with a sword, and an axe, and a spiral, and a spear, and a tree." He said with a smile.

Volvoretta looked a little down trodden "I want my name…" She said with a dramtic sigh. "But I know what it's gonna be" she beamed and hopped up on her feet. "I'm going to be Volvoretta my Ama said so and Zava said he liked it too."

"Voloetta? That's a hard name. It's too long." Ziztada thought for a moment "You need a nick name…. How about Retta? It's easy to say…" he said and pounced her. "And it's girly like you."

Retta squeeled and giggled as she gnawed on her friends ear. "Retta? Okay I think it's good but you need one too. You are Ziz then ok?" Retta said and flipped him over. She tilted her head a little bit and poked his back. "How come you don't have a mane? I have a mane but you don't" she said and turned to show the long black stripe of longer fur down her back.

Ziz blushed a little bit and hopped back up. "Cus I'm a boy stupid. We don't have girly manes." He said as the two went back to wrestling. Little did they know that what they thought of as harmless play would be their lively hood one day.

The mountain peak was rather forboding as Retta looked up it's rocky cliff. She clung to her mother and shook her head "I don't wanna go up there it's scary" she said and looked up pleadingly. "Can we just do it down here? Please Ama? Please?"

Sanuye sighed and pinched her brow for a moment. But with out saying a word she picked her daughter up by her tail and placed it in her mouth. Carefully the snow white woman started to ascend the rocky cliff. Her hands and thights carrying both of their weights with ease. Retta soon calmed down as she gently swung back and forth from her mothers mouth. She watched as the ground started to fall away behind them. But with her tail in Sanuye's mouth she wasn't scared.

On her face Retta wore a mask made from red clay. It had been molded to fit her face perfectly by her mother. The mask covered her muzzle, nose, and went around the top of her head. It met under her ears to make it a single solid piece. Only her ears, eyes, and lower jaw were left free. Just behind her nose there were three bands made from gold. However, underneath the mask was where the truly important thin lay. The mask's purpose was to hold a symbol, made from gold as well, against the little girls face. This symbol was to represent the name of the child.

Sanuye climbed higher and higher. She climbed up the sheer rock until at last, nearly 500 feet off the ground, the came upon a small landing. There were furs, and carved bones scattered about. They were offerings to the spirit of the storms, on this sacred and ancestral place. In the center, and acting as a kind of alter was a rounded rock stained red. This is where Sanuye placed her daughter.

Retta looked about at the carvings on the bones and the offerings of fur and then looked to her mother for direction. But her mother wasn't paying attention to her at the moment. She was placing another bone in the pile. Her own offering. Only once she was finished did she turn to face her daughter.

"Ama I-"

"Hush little one it's time. Close your eyes and I'll begin the ritual alright?" Sanuye said in a soothing voice.

Retta complied and did her best to relas on the red stained rock. She closed her eyes and folded her hands in her lap. Though she was unsure what was going to happen to her she knew that this was a sacred place and she should be on her best behavior. The spirits were watching her after all.

Her mother started to chant. Her voice was low at first but the pitch slowly rose to a great creshendo. The noise her mother made caused the little girls ears to fold back and though she wanted to clap her hands over them to dul the sound, Retta found herself paralyzed. She was frozen inplace until this ritual ended.

"Ekaitz, Ekaitz. I bring you my daughter. Ekaitz, Ekaitz. I giver her to you. Name this little child of yours. Name this one brought to your roost. Ekaitz, Ekaitz. Strike her with you light. Ekaitz, Ekaitz. Give her a name for all to see." Her mother chanted again and again.

As the chant went on the strom clouds that circled the peak began to darken and a clap of thunder shook the cliffs. Her mothers voice was loud though it could barely be heard over the rending wind. Darker and darker the clouds became. Until with a flash a bolt of lightning lanced from the heavens and struck the first band of gold. Two more lanced out following the first and struck each band in turn. The mask exploded rom Retta's face and she screamed in pain.

The chanting stopped and as suddenly as it had appeared the storm was gone. Sanuye looked to the alter and saw her daughter crupled in a little heap. Next to her lay the golden symbol that glowed white hot. Slowly she made her way over to the little form and picked Retta up. Branded across her face was a butterfly. It's wings were large swooping spirals that coiled around Retta's temples and cheeks. The body of the intricate design lay across her muzzle, and the little antenna sat just above her eyebrows.

Retta awoke and howled out in pain as she felt a burning pain. As she went to touch it she felt a bandage that had been tied across her face. Her mother was next to her and smiled softly down at the little firl.

"There she is." Her mother cooed.

As Retta looked around she could see her father, and her sister there as well each of them had a smile on their face. Slowly her mother picked the little girl up into her arms and held her close. Retta sniffled and started to cry big tears bubbled up from her eyes only to soak the bandages about her face. She bawled and buried her face int her mothers breast her shoulders shaking with her sobs.

Gently her mother stroked her and smiled 'there, there. It's alright now. You have a name. You're all finish my little one. My beautiful Volvoretta. It's the perfect name for such a little girl. A butterfly. So don't cry my little butterfly. Don't cry. Your final trial has finished."


End file.
